We spent the remainder of the afternoon with Ed Dudley who introduced us to some more machines, and showed us the work he was working on. To end the day he took us on a ‘tour’ of the building, visiting the other departments where we would be later in the week. At the end of the first day I was very tired, and looking forward to going to bed.
Tuesday 9th July – Day 2
On the morning of the second day we were in the GC/MS/MS (Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry/Mass Spectrometry) lab, the machines in here were highly accurate, and are used for calculating quantative amounts of drugs. One of these machines would cost upwards of £150,000.
At around 11:00 we went to the gammascintography department, this was a new addition to the Simbec ‘family’, which only moved there six months ago. This lab consisted of a machine which can detect radioactivity in labelled samples such as food. Uses for this unit include testing the effectiveness of asthma pumps, i.e. to see if the spray is being inhaled as opposed to staying in the mouth. At the time we were there volunteers were eating radioactive labelled drugs which were being traced throughout their digestive system. To aid the movement of the drugs they all had to eat a cooked breakfast, and the way the air conditioning system was set up everyone in the rest of the bio-analytical unit got very hungry before lunch.
Just before lunch we were shown the steps involved in solid extraction of drugs from urine and plasma samples, in order to obtain the wanted drug in as pure a form as possible, so it could be analysed. This is a very important process at Simbec and it means all the urine and blood samples can be processed more easily. We were then told that on returning from lunch we would each be doing our own solid extraction, with the results likely to come on Wednesday. With time on our sides after lunch, we had a nice relaxing afternoon of a solid extraction experiment. Finishing within our time limit we handed our final sample to Ed to be processed over night. I had really enjoyed doing a bit of hands on work after one and a half days of nothing like it.
Wednesday 10th July – Day 3
This morning we received the results from our experiment the day before. Surprisingly we all did remarkably well, resulting in us receiving many job offers in place of the existing staff. As a permanent memento of this experiment we each received the printout of all our results, which included several graphs and tables.
Having gone through the solid phase extraction process we were shown a liquid phase extraction, the difference between the two being obvious. With these extraction processes no two are the same for two different drugs, which means for every assay a new method has to be devised. In this case the process involved fifteen steps, all of which have to be followed very closely to ensure accurate reading at the end, although the addition of an internal standard (when a known amount of a known chemical is added, so at the end the ratio of it’s original amount to the end amount is calculated and applied to the drug to get a true figure) solves this problem.
Next on out agenda was a viewing with the GC/MS (Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry), the difference to LC/MS being the samples are in the gas phase when analysed. The advantage of GC/MS is that the samples that are being analysed can be more volatile, but will not be lost. Again this was a highly sensitive and complex piece of machinery. During the afternoon we moved to the radioisotope lab where radioactive labelled drugs in samples of plasma, urine, faeces or even vomit from volunteers are assessed. This process is used for determining where the drug is in the body at a certain time, how long it takes for the drug is retained in the body and how fast the drug is broken down into it’s metabolites. I found these methods very interesting, but was put off by the fact that they had to deal with frozen faeces and vomit. Once the samples were purified, hopefully now containing only the drug, they were put into a machine which recorded the counts/min, which was connected to a PC which printed out various complicated graphs and tables. It was now time to leave the bio-analytical unit for the last time, as tomorrow we would be in the pathology lab.
Thursday 11th July – Day 4
Having left the familiarity of the bio-analytical unit we moved upstairs to the pathology department. Here the basis of the work is concerned with the health of potential and existing volunteers, before and after the trials, as opposed to the effectiveness of the drugs. The machinery here was more automated, but still required the same attention to detail. First on the list today was to calibrate the machines, this involved putting control samples through. The reason for doing this is to ensure that you get the right results from the samples you test, calibrating has to be done every day.
There were three machines in the main lab, two of which had similar uses of looking at drug and alcohol levels in the blood and urine. While they did screen samples from the volunteers they also screen samples from a wide range of organisations, such as the DVLA, who do random test on employees. The third machine looked specifically at blood samples; it could determine the number of red blood cells, white blood cells (e.g. monocytes, neutophils etc.) and even the amount of haemoglobin. The use of this machine is again to ensure that all the volunteers have a clean bill of health, before and after taking part in any trials. I found this particularly interesting, after previously having been on work experience in a hospital where they had a similar machine, as it gave me a better idea of the uses of such machines, having found the concept of it difficult before.
During the afternoon we went to the microbiology lab, where they do specialised tests, for things such as HIV and Hepatitis B & C. There was nothing much for us to see or do here, so we helped with the packing of urine sample packages. These would be sent to different people in order for them to collect the samples, and then send them back to Simbec for analysis. Near the end of the day we were given a presentation, along with two biochemistry students who had just started a years placement there, about the Phase I trials, from the Phase I manager. It was very informative, and gave me an idea of the steps needed to get a drug to the stage where Simbec would take over.
Friday 12th July – 5th Day
For our final morning we took a trip to the drug dispensary, where the drugs for the Phase I studies were prepared. What struck me about this lab was that everything had to be immaculately clean, we had to wear some fetching hair nets and polythene shoe covers! Once the drug had been prepared for that day, we went to the ward to see the drugs being administered to the volunteers. The timing of everything had to be exactly right to the second, so if the drug was given at 11:23:34 and a blood sample had to be taken an hour later, it would have to be taken as close to 12:23:34 as possible.
Unfortunately due to prior lunch engagements we were forced to leave early, we said our thanks and our goodbyes, and were driven to Cardiff. I had thoroughly enjoyed the placement and the week as a whole, it has certainly helped open my eyes a little. It was a great placement and I was fortunate to get this opportunity, especially with such a friendly organisation. Not only was the placement a very good experience, but living with other students was also of benefit to me, so I would like to take this opportunity to thank Business in the Community (Quality Placements Wales & London) for this unique opportunity – Thanks.
